I’d like to tell this as I remember it, not as I understand it now. I will leave that part to your interpretation.
Before all of this
I am a 44-year-old woman. I’m four classes away from a bachelor’s degree in science, and I recently graduated a program for nuclear medicine, maintaining an almost perfect GPA. I’m a mother of three, two of whom are actively serving our country, and I’m soon to be a grandma. I promise you, I never thought this could happen to me, but here I am.
Back story
This regretful chapter of my life began March 2024. I was in school to become a nuclear medicine technologist. The year before, I had graduated a radiologic technologist program and passed my board exams.
I had dabbled in becoming a radiation therapist and did a semester of school learning about cancer and doing clinicals working with radiation treatments. I found it overwhelming as I would come home after work deeply depressed thinking about those that were suffering. I hadnt met God yet and was deeply troubled by the suffering of the people I met. While this was a subject close to my heart. I decided that I couldnt handle the amount of pain that came with it. I settled for nuclear medicine.
I was still close to those that needed help, but I was in a different stage of it. Diagnosing. That still had struggles as some of my paitients were being diagnosed with cancer, or learning their cancer had come back, or progressed. there is something in me that needs to help.
How we met
I met Scott on a dating app. He was in Colorado training for work. He told me he was retiring soon and had planned to move there within the next few months.
We met for dinner and drinks. He was cute and a little nerdy. He wore thick-brimmed glasses that he joked made him look like Dahmer. When he laughed, I was surprised to see he had a mouth full of braces. He was shy and a bit awkward about them showing when he smiled.
Scott told me he was born in Portland, Oregon, and having been from Vancouver, Washington, roughly a 20-minute drive away, we had a lot in common. We talked about the area and reminisced about “home,” having many similar memories of how we both grew up in the area.
We were inseparable from the moment we met. He showered me with love and attention like no other man had before and seemed to really understand me.
A month into our whirlwind romance, he was told to return to Virginia. We were both heartbroken. By June, we had visited each other on multiple occasions, I had met his children, and he flew to Oregon to meet my parents. And by July, just 3½ months after meeting, we were married.
To be continued
In Part Two, I will tell you what happened when I left my home and my life behind to start our marriage in Virginia.
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